The House Is Black

Short documentary made in 1962, of a leper colony. By the poet Forough Farrokhzad.
This is a seeringly put together feature. Yes, the images are clearly shocking. The question of God, a dove, a beauty that could yet allow this to happen is clearly raised. This is juxtaposed with the camera's role in the situation. And, crucially, the social role is also raised; these are people, they can be helped.
The constant search the film makes is how to represent this. There are longer takes, the scene to the distance, of repitiotus actions. Indeed, there is much repetion here. As fast montage sometimes comes in, trying to grab the images, they reveal their anxiety. As is occassionally explicit, for all the camera shows, it also hides. We can only see feet; the face is masked. Various techniques, of direct presentation, focus on surface, pans, are used, to take us among, always at a necessary distance, the colony.
The break between sound and image is effected as at once critical distance, at once unknowability. The use of poetry does not interfere with the image, but asks us to distance ourselves. And the poetry, rooted as it is in the earth, casts the sights to the wider context; of course we are locked out.
For all the images of deformity here, this film should not be marked as showing something extreme, or weird. It shows a medical complaint. Why? It must be to help, improve. Their is more of an immanent, material anlysis, than might be immediately apparent on the surface. For that, this film saves itself morally. That is where the beauty of it lies; the most carefully framed images projected are images of protest, not acceptance.